Horace Walpole

Horace Walpole (1717–1797), 4th Earl of Orford, was an English writer, antiquarian, art historian, and Whig politician. The son of Prime Minister Robert Walpole, he was educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge, and later served as a Member of Parliament. Walpole is best known for *The Castle of Otranto* (1764), a pioneering Gothic novel that helped shape the genre. He also created Strawberry Hill, his villa at Twickenham, which became a landmark of Gothic Revival taste. Walpole’s vast correspondence, especially his letters, remains a major source for 18th-century British cultural and political life.